Colin Pearson

Colin Pearson: violin and viola

Born in Tunbridge Wells, England in 1949, and after living for 3 years in Singapore, I took up the violin at the age of 12. I attended a music school where I first came into contact with public performance and the works of Webster and Milton. Deciding against a formal musical education I attended Ravensbourne College of Art in South London and attained a Diploma in Moving Picture Communication in 1970. During the two years in Bromley I met Roger Wootton and Glenn Goring who asked me to join their band. Actually, it was just a band at that time as the name Comus came later. The Story of Comus is well documented on this site so suffice to say we released our debut album “First Utterance” (PYE, Dawn) in 1970 and toured round this album for two years in UK, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. We somehow survived the deprivations of touring to produce music for 3 films, and appeared, albeit briefly (thankfully), in one of them.

Following the upheaval of the break-up of Comus in 1972 I worked in London as a session musician and top-line writer for April Music, also completing a score for the Matt Mattocks Ballet Company USA which was performed in Paris in 1973. Much of my work at this time came from roommate Rob Young (ex-Comus) who had turned to session arranging to pay the rent. In 1974 I followed manager Chris Youle to Hamburg, Germany, where I began working for the International offices of Polydor Records, co-ordinating the international releases and marketing campaigns of major artists worldwide. My first steps as a producer were taken in 1979 while ostensibly still salaried to Polydor.

Realising that record companies were too far removed from music I looked around for a chance to work as a producer and in 1980 joined the independent music publisher Rolf Budde Music as Head of Production at their Berlin offices where the studio was located. Here in 1984 I co-produced Alphaville´s debut album which featured the worldwide hits “Big In Japan” and “Forever Young” and the platinum and gold selling album which contained them, “Big In Japan” reaching No. 8 in the UK and No.1 in most European countries. “Forever Young” went top 50 in the USA and both are still today radio evergreens in the groups’ native Germany.

After Alphaville, I continued to produce in USA, UK, Berlin and Denmark, but began to tire of the pressure of having to adhere to “formula” music. Gradually, and with a sense of relief, I returned to my “underground” beginnings and as most of this was too “uncommercial” for the major labels I built two recording studios in the ensuing years in order to follow my musical heart undisturbed. In 1996 I formed Edition CP Music, a co-publishing company with EMI Music Publishing Germany and today I’ve “returned to the fold”, to take up my bow again as part of the reformed Comus line-up playing viola and violin in the songs that somehow won’t lie down and die! I still live in Berlin, Germany, with my Russian-born adopted son Nikolai.